Ngirabatware, Augustin

Augustin Ngirabatware was serving as Rwandan’s Minister of Planning in the Interim Government at the time of the 1994 genocide. According to the Indictment dated 27 September 1999, Ngirabatware is responsible for genocide, complicity to genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the killings. Notably, Ngirabatware is accused of having used funds from his department to finance the genocide.

In the Indictment from 1999, Ngirabatware is jointly accused with Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, the former Minister of the National Education and Scientific Research. In September 2005, Kamuhanda was sentenced to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Appeals Chamber.

The prosecutor does not accuse Ngirabatware of personally ‘having blood on his hands’, but instead charges Ngirabatware on the basis of his influence “as an eminent academic, his permanence at the government since 1990, the head of a key ministry”. Augustin Ngirabatware is the son-in-law of Félicien Kabuga, also accused by the ICTR for being one of the main financiers of the 1994 genocide and who is still at large.

The former Minister of Planning was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, on 17 September 2007, in relation to an arrest warrant issued in 2001 by the ICTR. Ngirabatware was transfered on 8 October 2008 to the Tribunal, in Arusha, Tanzania. On 10 October 2008, he pleaded not guilty of all counts. The trial of Ngirabatware began on 23 September 2009.